News, information and commentary related to religion... at times not so clearly.

February 18, 2013

newSpin 130218

newSpin, the newsletterFebruary 18, 2013Bill LewellisPublished on MondayOccasionally, abbreviated, also on Thursday

TopSpin• Zumba dancing to Jerusalem.. [ENS]Shannon Knapp of Lehighton, Pennsylvania, is Zumba dancing her way to Jerusalem as part of her 2013 Lenten spiritual practice.
At least 83 others in the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem are rowing, weightlifting, cycling, walking and even chair-exercising
from nursing homes in the spirit of giving up unhealthy lifestyles as
they count calories burned as miles traveled and aim to “arrive in
Jerusalem” in time for Holy Week. ,,, It’s about 5,675 miles from Carbon County, Pennsylvania, to Jerusalem,
and the Rev. John Wagner, rector-elect of St. Mark’s and St. John’s
Church in the city of Jim Thorpe, is making the calories-to-miles
conversions for a host of exercises. That way, participants will
metaphorically and collectively arrive in Jerusalem “in time to join
Jesus on the Via Dolorosa and walk that trail of tears with him.” Read on.

• Diocese seeks Missioner for Communication and Congregational Renewal ... Are
you a digital native, passionate about new ways of communicating
ancient traditions and furthering our diocesan mission to "Live God's
love. Tell what you have seen and heard"? Are you a superb volunteer
coordinator? Can you think strategically? Do you have excellent
communication skills? If so, we want you to become a part of our team.
The Diocese of Bethlehem is currently accepting applications for the
position of Missioner for Communication and Congregational Renewal. This
is a full-time, salaried position working out of Diocesan House.
Deadline for submission of letter of interest and resumes is March 5,
2013. Download job description and details on subission info here.

SoulSpin• Wilderness Yearning: Canon Anne Kitch's daily Lenten reflections ... You can read them here or subscribe to receive them as daily emails through the Diocese of Bethlehem using the Get Connected box. Enter your name and email address, click on "my groups," and select Wilderness Yearning. I recenty found Anne's reflection for Saturday, Feb. 16, especially helpful.

• Giving up God to make room for God ... [Episcopal Café] Brandon Ambrosino, an Orthodox Christian, is giving up God for Lent. He writes at Huffington Post: Indeed, the God of my rigid ideologies, of my complacent
Theology; the God who validates my unwillingness to explore heresies,
and rewards me for arrogantly dismissing them as sinful; the God who
grounds my intellectual arrogance in His omniscience, and my politics in
his omnipotence; the God who vanquishes all of His and my inquisitive
foes, forever silencing their obnoxious questions with the fires of
Hell ... is dead. Read on.

• Prayer is not pious. Like art, it simply needs attention to that which is other ... [Giles Fraser, GuardianUK] Some people, I suppose, may think of prayer as a peculiar way of making
things happen in the world. And it would indeed be a quite a fringe
benefit to religious belief if it granted believers the ability to
change the course of the universe simply by closing their eyes,
squeezing their hands together, and submitting a request to the divine
omnipotence that things be otherwise. Yes, it is easy to be sarcastic at
the philosophical naivety of this view. But is this really what people
do? Read on.• For Lent ... See the February 14 newSpin newsletter, 130214. Here. And Zumba Dancing above, under TopSpin.• The Book of Common Prayer ... every edition from 1549 to 1979. Here.• Prayers and Thanksgivings from the BCP. Here.• The Daily Office ... can be read online in Rite I, Rite II or the New Zealand Prayer Book versions. At Mission St. Clare.• Holy Women, Holy Men ... Download Holy Women, Holy Men as a .pdf file.• Speaking to the Soul ... An Episcopal Café blog. Sermons, reflections, multimedia meditations and excerpts from books on spirituality. Here.

DioBethSpin• Diocesan Training Day ... March 9 at St. Stephen's, Wilkes-Barre. Here. Register online.• Chrism Mass ... March 21 at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, 11 a.m.• Christophany ... April 19-21 at Pocono Plateau Retreat Center in Cresco. Online registration opens March 1.• Diocesan Evangelism and Stewardship Conference ... May 18 at St. Stephen's W-B.

ParishSpin• Allentown/Bethlehem ... Social ministries at St. Andrew's. Here.• Athens ... Social ministries at Trinity. Here.• Bethlehem ... Social ministries at Cathedral Church of Nativity. Here.• Bethlehem ... Social ministries at Trinity. Here.• Easton ... Social ministries at Trinity. Here.• Forest City ... Social ministries at Christ Church. Here.• Hazleton ... Social ministries at St. Peter's. Here.• Hellertown ... Social ministries at St. George's. Here.• Honesdale ... Social miinisgtries at Grace. Here.• Jermyn ... Social ministries at St. James-St. George. Here.• Kutztown ... Social ministries at St. Barnabas. Here.• Mt. Pocono ... Social ministries at Trinity. Here.• Reading ... Social ministries at Christ Church. Here.• Sayre ... Social ministries at Church of the Redeemer. Here.• Susquehanna ... Social ministries at Christ Church. Here. • Tunkhannock ... Social ministries at St. Peter's. Here.• West Pittston ... Social ministries at Trinity. Here.• Wilkes-Barre ... Social ministries at St. Stephen's. Here.[Highlighting parish social ministries will be a continuing item.Corrections and additions are welcome.]

• At Trinity Bethlehem ... [Marcie Lightwood]Blackwater, the Lehigh Valley's premier Celtic band, will be appearing in concert at Trinity Episcopal Church Sunday, February 24, at 3:00 p.m. The dynamic five-piece band plays traditional Irish and Celtic tunes and songs. A suggested donation of $15.00 will be gratefully received at the door. A reception follows the concert. For more information, call Trinity 610-867-4741 X 308. The reception alone is worth the asking price. If $15.00 isn't in your budget, come anyway. That is a "suggested" donation. Proceeds pay the band and hopefully support Trinity's music program.

• Bereavement Support Group ... Thursday - Feb 21, 7 p.m. in Good Shepherd Chapel at the Cathedral. The reality of grief is a tangible difficulty that is often faced better with those also grieving. If you have experienced the loss of a loved one or any grief due to loss, please join us for casual and non-threatening gatherings. No once is forced to share feelings unless and until they have comfort doing so. If interested in participating, contact Dean Pompa at tpompa@nativitycathedral.org or call the office at 610-865-0727.

• A 21-minute video of Stations of the Cross ... at St. Clement/St. Peter's in Wilkes-Barre. Watch it here.

• Note to parishes ... Post news summaries and links on Bakery or send them to Bill.• Calendar of Events ... Here and Here.

Episcopal/Anglican (beyond DioBeth)• Human Trafficking
... Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will host an hour-long
exploration into the church’s work in Human Trafficking on Wednesday,
March 6. Human Trafficking: A Churchwide Conversation will
originate from the Chapel of Christ the Lord in the Church Center in New
York City beginning at 2 pm Eastern. It will be presented via WebEx.
Participation is limited; advance registration is mandatory. To
register: trafficking@episcopalchurch.org. To submit a question,
trafficking@episcopalchurch.org, More info here.

Employment Opportunities• DioBeth Missioner for Communication and Congregational Renewal ... A new full-time position in the Diocese of Bethlehem. See above, under TopSpin.

• Organist and Choir Director: Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Whitehall, is looking for a part-time organist and choir director to direct a senior choir, youth choir and handbell choir. One service a week. Salary range from $16,000 to $17,500. Contact the church office at 610-262-1600 for more details.

TaleSpin• Is God the missing character in Downton Abbey? ... [David Gibson, RNS and WaPo]Here.• Trauma: a missioner's occupational hazard ... [NCR] The biblical mandate to "go therefore and make disciples of all the
nations" (Matthew 28:19), should have come with this disclaimer: If you
are a missioner in a conflict zone, your emotional and psychological
well-being will be shredded, you will destroy your life as you currently
know it and, by the way, you may be killed. Any romantic ideas about
Christians traveling overseas on mission are patently false. Read on.

TailSpin• Rhode Island judge releases documents revealing inner workings of Legion of Christ ... [NCR] Documents released Friday by a Rhode Island judge provide a new window
into the internal workings of the Legion of Christ, a religious order of
priests whose founder was revealed to have sexually abused seminarians
and fathered children by at least two women. Read on.

• Vatican impeded Cardinal Mahony's attemps to remove priests ... [LATimes]Although local leaders had the authority to take troubled clerics out of
parishes, only the pope could remove them from the priesthood entirely.
And when Mahony turned to the Vatican, the papers show, he ran into a
bureaucracy steeped in ritual, mired in delays and reluctant to come to
terms with the burgeoning problem. More here.

HeadSpin• Catholicism Inc. ... [NYTimes Op-Ed, Bill Keller]
Behold a global business in distress — incoherently managed, resistant
to the modernizing forces of the Internet age, tainted by scandal and
corruption. It needs to tweak its marketing, straighten out its
finances, up its recruiting game and repair its battered brand. Ecce
Catholicism Inc. Read on.

• On homosexuality, many Christians get the Bible wrong ... [WaPo] For many Christians today, particularly young adults, the handful of
Bible verses related to same sex intimacy seem more like the 100 plus
verses on slavery than they do the teachings of Jesus and his great
commandments to love God and neighbor. More here.

Media/Films/DVD/TV/Books/Music/Tech• Why Priests? ... [Episcopal Café] Garry Wills new book "Why Priests? A Failed Tradition" is getting significant airtime from The Diane Rehm Show to The Colbert Report. Kevin Madigan reviews the book in The New Republic in an article entitled Why Priests Have Power. Read on. Many comments, as one might suppose, after the Episcopal Café item. And in the NYTimes Sunday Book Review, Wills' quarrel is not with priests but with the specious notion of the priesthood.

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